


Tensile Strength

by xenosaurus



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Arguing, M/M, Making Out, Mild Sexual Content, Pining, Post-Time Skip, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 00:53:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20331349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenosaurus/pseuds/xenosaurus
Summary: Felix solemnly refuses to talk about girls.





	Tensile Strength

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to benny, for betaing and moral support! this particular work involved a lot of me going "are they being too mean. is sylvain too stupid. help." so you can thank them for my brain not imploding

Felix doesn’t like to talk about girls.

No, that isn’t quite right. Felix _solemnly refuses_ to talk about girls.

The second Sylvain brings up women, Felix will leave the conversation. Literally. By physically leaving the room.

Once the war really gets going, it starts to become something of a game, lighthearted and barely serious. If Felix ever said yes, Sylvain could probably talk a couple of lady knights into having dinner with them, but that really isn’t the point anymore. Badgering Felix about double dating is just a way to feel normal during dangerous times.

The breaking point comes after a particularly long, exhausting battle. Sylvain got hurt pretty badly partway through, but Annette got him fixed up and he kept going. In the end, it was a victory, but the sort where Sylvain is more focused on his empty stomach and full bladder rather than any sort of celebration. His legs are numb from sitting on his horse for too long, but Ashe notices and steadies him when he nearly falls getting down.

“Thanks,” Sylvain says, holding tight to his friend’s shoulder until he can stand properly again. “Mind watching Chastity for a minute? I’m dying for a piss.”

“Sure thing,” Ashe says, accepting the horse’s reins.

“You’re a lifesaver. Be right back,” Sylvain says, walking off the battlefield on unsteady legs.

He runs into Felix on his way back, feeling a little less miserable now that he’s relieved himself. It isn’t quite enough to spur him into real good cheer, but the intense look on Felix’s face makes him want to fake it.

“Tough battle, eh, Felix? We were pretty impressive out there, bet a few of the lady kni--”

Felix grabs him by the collar, stopping him mid-sentence.

“Shut _up_,” he snaps. “The last time I saw you, you had an axe clean through your damn stomach. I thought you were _dead_!”

Oh. Oh shit, his voice is trembling. Felix drops his hold on Sylvain’s collar and glares off to the side. Sylvain expects him to go back to yelling, but he doesn’t.

“Felix… Hey, I’m okay,” Sylvain says. “You worry too much.”

Felix looks him straight on, and Sylvain is stunned into silence. The fury is nothing new, but it’s been a long time since Felix looked at him with tears in his eyes. He wipes them away angrily, giving Sylvain a look that dares him to say anything about it.

“You… You don’t get to _say_ that to me! You handed your damn horse off to Ashe and just wandered off into the woods by yourself!”

“I had to pee!” Sylvain protests, taken off guard.

“You couldn’t hold it for five minutes?! Going off on your own sounds like a real good way to get killed!”

“We won, Felix, it’s okay! I’m okay!” Sylvain says, slapping on his best smile. “Would I be talking about girls if I wasn’t okay? Come on, I’m not _that_ bad.”

“If you had _any_ sense of when to talk about women, you wouldn’t be talking to me about them at all!” Felix growls.

Sylvain has heard a lot of complaints about his womanizing, and plenty of those are from Felix, but there’s an edge to this one.

He sounds like he does when he’s hurting.

“Wait. Did _you_ get hurt in that battle?”

Felix scowls. “No. Don’t try to change the subject.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about girls?” Sylvain says, rolling his eyes.

The tension between them is so heavy that Sylvain can feel it in his chest, right before Felix grabs him, two-handed, by his breastplate.

“I can’t tell if you’re stupid or cruel,” he snarls. His face is bright red and his eyes are miserable.

No amount of denial can make this moment mean anything other than what it does.

Sylvain swallows hard. “Stupid.”

And then he kisses Felix.

Felix must still have some adrenaline in his system from the fight, because there’s no delay in his reaction. He makes a guttural sound and surges forward, pinning Sylvain against the nearest tree. Sylvain grabs hold of whatever he can get, ending up with one hand grasping the side of Felix’s belt and the other ruining the ridiculous way he pins up his hair.

There’s no skill in how Felix kisses. It’s raw and desperate and he doesn’t know what to do with his teeth. Sylvain knows how to kiss, but for once, he isn’t thinking about showing off any sort of technique. It isn’t a planned move when he shifts his stance, ending up with one leg between Felix’s. He’s working entirely from muscle memory.

Felix’s startled moan hits Sylvain before he can even register what’s now pressed against his thigh.

Felix takes a frantic step back, and _oh_, Sylvain aches at the sight of him. Sylvain succeeded in ruining his hair in a way that the battle did not, and he’s never seen him blush like that. He’s trying to glare at Sylvain, but he can’t hold eye contact.

“That was… _wow_,” Sylvain says. Something giddy is bubbling up in his stomach, and he can’t help but grin.

“Shut up,” Felix grumbles, embarrassment radiating off of him in waves.

“Can we do that again?” Sylvain asks, taking a step forward to close the distance Felix put between them. Impossibly, he thinks Felix goes even redder.

“I said shut up,” he says, and reaches out like he’s about to shove Sylvain away from him. Instead, when his palms reach Sylvain’s chest, he just… leaves them there. Sylvain gives in to temptation and leans in to kiss him again. This one doesn’t escalate the way that last one did, but it pulls at his chest all the same.

“You could have said something,” Sylvain says, softer than he really intends to. “You know you’ve always been special to me.”

Felix scowls. “You know damn well why I didn’t say anything.”

Sylvain has the good sense to look sheepish. “I can’t really argue with that, can I?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s head back,” Felix says, tone clipped.

“Well… I guess we do have to regroup before we can do any celebrating.”

Felix bristles. “You can’t seriously be talking about--”

“Relax. I meant just the two of us,” Sylvain says, and winks. “I think we have a lot to catch up on.”

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [xenosaurus](https://xenosaurus.tumblr.com)


End file.
